The purpose of this application is to request funds in the amount of 15915 to help organize and execute the 13th International Biomaterials Symposium to be held at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, May 28-31, 1981. This Symposium is the older continuous and most prestigious open conference in the world dealing with the broad spectrum of biomaterials. Since its inception at Clemson University in 1969, it has become the primary forum of international liaison, information exchange, and state-of-the-art development in the field of biomaterials. Attesting to this is the strong representation year after year at the Symposia of visitors from most of Western Europe, Japan, Australia, India, Canada, and the Middle East; at times there have also been attendees from Latin American and the Eastern Bloc countries as well. Nearly all of the areas in modern biomaterials research have been covered during past symposia through the mix of contributed and invited papers. To maintain this quality, which keeps leading researchers returning year after year, features of previous meetings will be continued. This includes invited plenary papers by outstanding researchers in several areas, each of which respectively will be followed by a group of submitted papers organized into a related thematic session. The plenary speakers will be selected to present topics in dental, orthopedic and cardiovascular materials. In addition, there will be a series of three morning breakfast tutorials each preceding a days meetings; topics to be covered include: 1) the education of a biomaterialist; 2) degradation of polymer properties in vivo; 3) mutagenicity tests and biocompatibility. One final added feature will be an evening tutorial on histology. All the submitted papers will be subjected to a blind review system; accepted papers, either for oral or poster presentation, will be collected in a printed Transactions volume. The sponsor(s) e.g. NIDR, NIAMDD, NHLBI will be primarily acknowledged in all printed matter such as the program, Transactions and the announcements in technical journals in the U.S. and abroad.